Reviews by johanlefourbe

To honest, it has been ages since I have this flick and when I was a kid, I thought it was pretty awesome. Sure, nowadays, we have ‘Wall-E’ which remains my favorite Pixar production, or even the recent ‘Chappie’ which was pretty cool without being a real masterpiece but, back in the 80’s, we had Johnny 5. Actually, coming back to the comparison between ‘Wall-E’ and ‘Short Circuit’, I have noticed that all the guys growing up with this 80’s classic are always complaining that Pixar pretty much plagiarized their childhood classic. Honestly, I find this argument a little bit ridiculous since ‘Wall-E’ is a downright masterpiece whereas ‘Short Circuit’ is fairly enjoyable but still really cheesy 80’s feature. Anyway, when I first saw this movie, I thought it was rather well made and quite entertaining and, of course, I thought that Johnny 5 was a really neat robot. Unfortunately, the other characters were rather weak, especially Steve Guttenberg who must have been one of the most underwhelming actors that showed up in the 80’s. To conclude, even though it is not a masterpiece, it is still a childhood favorite and I think it is worth a look, especially if you like the genre.

I already saw this movie but since it was such a long time ago, I was really eager to check it out again. If I recall it correctly, I first saw this flick in the movie theater, of course, not when it was released (back then, I don’t think Hayao Miyazaki had already had his international breakthrough) but the local Art house movie theater wanted to re-release it for some reasons, probably because of Miyazaki’s impressive reputation. Anyway, to be honest, even though this movie is considered as a classic from Studio Ghibli, I had actually a hard time to really connect with this tale. I mean, I have to admit that it was without a doubt easily their cutest production (the cat bus was especially really awesome) but the plot was just really thin. Furthermore, for once, there gave us 2 main characters but since the running time was rather short, there was no time to really develop them and, as a result, these 2 girls were both rather uninteresting and, to be honest, I thought they were even sometimes slightly annoying. Anyway, to conclude, even though I wasn't really blown away by the whole thing, it is still a really solid animated feature and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre.

To be honest, it has been a while since I have seen this flick and maybe I should re-watch it at some point. Personally, I always had a weak spot for romantic-comedies and this one is definitely a classic in this genre and, if I recall correctly, my wife really loved it. Anyway, back then when it was released, when Julia Roberts was the biggest female movie star in the world, it was a big box-office success but, to be honest, I wasn’t really blown away by the whole thing. I mean, sure, it was well made and fairly entertaining but it was just too generic and predictable for my taste to become really remarkable. I mean, when you think about it, the main character is actually pretty much a bitch and I couldn’t really root for her. In fact, Cameron Diaz, who was pretty much starting her career at her time, managed to make her character much sweeter and interesting than Julia Roberts. And of course, the always awesome Rupert Everett completely stole the show and it is thanks to this movie that he finally became noticed by the mainstream audience. To conclude, even though I’m not a huge fan, I have to admit that it is still a decent romantic-comedy and it is worth a look, especially if you like the genre.

To be honest, it has been a while since I have seen this flick and I should definitely re-watch it at some point. Back then, I was much younger, I’m pretty sure it was the first movie starring Daniel Day-Lewis that I saw and the guy just blew me away with his talent and commitment. I have to confess, I had actually never heard of Christy Brown before and, without this movie, I’m pretty sure I would have never heard of the guy ever during my whole life. To be honest, it is actually a rather straightforward biopic but even though it was fairly predictable, the main character Christy Brown was just quite fascinating thanks to Day-Lewis who was at the top of his game. Eventually, he would take this great thespian surprisingly almost 20 years to win again another Academy Award for the Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role with his great performance in ‘There Will Be Blood’ and he will become the first male performer to win three awards for lead roles following ‘Lincoln’. Anyway, coming back to our main feature, it was a fascinating drama and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre.

I already saw this movie but, since it was ages ago and since it was available on Netflix, I thought I might as well check it out again. I remember it very well, one of my oldest childhood friends was really a huge fan and wouldn’t stop telling me that it was one of the greatest movies ever made. I might have even seen this flick with him the first time around. Anyway, to my surprise, I actually didn’t like it at all. Indeed, I was never able to really connect with the jokes and I always thought it was more stupid than actually funny. Well, 30 years after watching it for the first time around, I finally really enjoyed the damned thing after all. The weird thing was that I had apparently saw this movie already multiple times by now but, to be honest, I didn’t remember much about it. Anyway, right from the opening credits with the messed-up Swedish subtitles, I was actually already pretty much sold. How come I never thought it was hilarious before? Sure, it was still completely random but it was just so damned entertaining. The cool thing is that it actually still does work as a medieval adventure flick as well, except that they take the piss at the genre every time they have the opportunity which was basically every 30 seconds. If I’m not mistaken, it was the first movie made by the Monty Python that I saw and I guess always struggled with their humor but, after this amazing rewatch, I wish I could also watch ‘Monty Python's Flying Circus’ but I have noticed it will leave Netflix soon. Anyway, to conclude, even though it took me years to finally appreciate this movie, I have to admit that it is actually indeed really awesome so you should definitely check it out, especially if you like the genre.

To be honest, it is a really obscure feature so I wasn't really expecting much from it but I had the DVD already for ages (almost 4 years...), so I thought it was really time to watch the damned thing. The main reason I was actually interested in this movie in the first place was because Christopher Walken was involved and, on top of that, he was even playing the lead for once. Unfortunately, Walken himself admitted that he loves his work so much that he agrees to be in pretty much all the movies proposed to him. That would explain how he could end up in a movie like this one. I mean, I have seen worse but the whole thing was just so bland and generic, at the end, after barely 80 minutes, you wonder if the damned thing did actually ever start at some point. At least, Walken, as a great professional, did his thing as usual and it was nice to see a young Vera Farmiga before she had her breakthrough but her character was really poorly developed, just like all the other characters. Anyway, to conclude, even though it was not a complete waste of time, it wasn't far from it and I don't think this movie is really worth a look.

To be honest, I wasn't expecting much from this flick but since I had it for a while on DVD, I thought I might as well check it out after all. Well, it was pretty terrible and I think it is in fact a good example of how difficult it is to actually make a movie. I mean, here, they had everything they needed, a director, some actors, a whole crew and a story which could have worked and, yet, the whole thing was just pretty much awful to look at. Where should I start? I don't know which one was worse, the directing or the acting. I mean, I'll give you that, the girls were pretty cute (there was even a really unexpected and rather weird cameo by Natasha Henstridge who must have lost her mind to show up in this) but all of them couldn't act at all, it was just cringe-inducing to behold. Concerning the directing, well, the whole thing was coherent, at least, that's something, but it was just so lifeless and really boring to watch. To conclude, it was one very weak indie feature, no wonder that no one else has actually seen it and you should pretty much avoid it.

Almost a year ago, Robin Williams passed away with some really dramatic circumstances so it is with some mixed feelings that I look back at his work. For example, this movie was definitely one of his biggest box-office successes and, 20 years later, it is still very popular but, to be honest, it is not really good, I’m afraid. First of all, the whole gimmick of a man disguising himself as a woman not by choice but just to trick someone for any kind of reasons, never really appealed to me. I mean, ‘Some like it Hot’ remains by far the best one in this genre but even ‘Tootsie’ which is quite a classic never really worked for me either. In this case, sure, the make-up was pretty good and Robin Williams goes really wild with this character but the fact remains that it is actually a really stupid story. Basically, it seems that everyone has agreed that it doesn’t matter that plot is idiotic as long as we get to see Williams doing his usual hysterical act. On top of that, I thought it was just mildly amusing but never actually hilarious. To conclude, I think this movie is seriously overrated and I don’t think it is really worth a look, except maybe if you are a die-hard fan of Robin William.

Yesterday, my wife had a great surprise. Indeed, since our youngest daughter had a sleep-over, she suggested that we should go on a date. Eventually, we went to see this movie in a very cozy movie theater where there is no separation between the chairs, lots of room for your legs, a little table with a small lamp and a button to press to get a waiter to bring you some snacks and drinks. It was just really neat and this movie was just the perfect choice for a romantic evening like this one. Indeed, it was nothing really heavy but it was still pretty damned spectacular and entertaining. Basically, Tom Cruise has finally nailed the formula for this franchise and, even though this new sequel was a slight step down from its predecessor, it still worked fine. Indeed, the action scenes were just really impressive, pretty much the best delivered by the industry right now, Simon Pegg was once again hilarious as the sidekick and I was quite impressed by newcomer Rebecca Ferguson who was just perfect as femme fatale. Eventually, it was almost a home-run but some elements still bothered me. For example, they keep giving us some really murky plots every time and the whole plot against the IMF has been done too many time before. Furthermore, it was a little too long and the main villain was rather disappointing. Still, I thought it was a decent blockbuster and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre.